


Lunar High

by ninjamartinfreema



Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-26 21:14:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1702766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninjamartinfreema/pseuds/ninjamartinfreema
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>High School AU of the LC. Kai already has his hands full with his sick father, a business he is not ready to take over, and power hungry business competitors. The last thing he needs is an F ruining his perfect record during his senior year. But his tutor may be able to help him get through more than just shop class.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kai

Kai looked down at the paper in his hands and winced again. He had repeated this process about three other times, but he couldn't quite get his head around it. Shop Class. He had a D in Shop Class. He had taken the class because he needed another elective credit and it had seemed like an easy A.

But it was not an easy A. He never knew which screws or bolts went where, and when his teacher tried to help him, the names of the tools he was told to use seemed like a foreign language.

Honestly, he was screwed. It was his senior year. He had everything else taken care of. He was ready to graduate, as Valedictorian, a title he had worked his ass of to get over four years. But it didn't seem like he would make it to that podium in May if he couldn't make it to an A by December when grades and class rankings were finalized.

Four years of hard work ruined in seven weeks. He looked down at the paper again, willing the print to change. But it stayed there in black and white. He winced again and stopped in front of the door to Mr. Lou's classroom. He turned the handle, and when he entered, Mr. Lou looked up at him and the older man's salt and pepper beard moved as he gave Kai a sympathetic smile.

"I thought I might be seeing you today Huang. Not too happy with that progress report, I take it?"

Kai's wince turned into a grimace. "No sir."

"I'm sorry Huang, I'll take a second look at your projects, but I can't promise you that your grade is going to change."

"That's alright" Kai spoke quickly. "You don't need to look at my old projects, that's not why I'm here." Kai was ashamed to admit that Mr. Lou had probably been a bit too generous in his grading the first time around, if he got a second look at some of that stuff he might just fail Kai altogether. "It's not that I have a problem with my grading scale. I just - I was wondering if you had a free period and you wouldn't mind using some of that time to tutor me?"

Mr. Lou looked slightly uncomfortable for a moment, but his face then brightened. "I'm afraid last year was the last year teacher's had free periods. When they switched from eight to seven periods we lost that time. But I have a star student that might be able to help you, if you're interested in a peer tutor."

Kai nodded his head. "Absolutely. If you think he'll be able to help then I'd appreciate it."

"Well," the teacher started with a twinkle in his eye, "I'll ask her in class tomorrow. If her schedule is too full, I'll tell the office to send you a note. But if you don't hear otherwise, come back to this classroom after school. I will introduce the two of you and then you will be able to decide when and where you want to study."

Kai felt the knot of tension between his shoulders ease a bit and he smiled. "Thank you. I'll be here."

Mr. Lou gave him an authoritative nod and dismissed him.

Kai walked to the parking lot and got into his car. He revved up the engine and it's quiet rumble matched the buzzing in his head. Well, it was one thing crossed off of his to do list at least. He hadn't solved the problem, that he knew, but he was one step closer. Everything else, all of the other issues swarmed his thoughts. The most present of which was his father's health.

Huang Rikan had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and…it didn't look good. Rikan, as the CEO of Eastern Enterprises, had the money to pay for a lot of treatments normal people didn't get. They were extending his life, but not by much.

Kai's fists clenched as he thought of the doctors and nurses that had seen his father. The looks of sympathy and pity on their faces as they informed him and Konn Torin, one of his father's oldest friends and the executor of his estate, that Rikan had a year left at best.

With his father's illness, business competitors had started to become more aggressive. The worst of which was Luna Corp The woman it was run by, Levana Something-or-other, was a hard woman. She had tried for years to convince Kai's father to merge their companies and to stabilize the merger with their marriage. Now, she had turned her sights on Kai.

One of the scariest parts of having Levana's attention, was the fact that sometimes Kai crazed it. The woman was cold and vicious, but when she looked at him, Auburn curls falling around her face, he forgot about her bad side. It was hard to believe that someone that beautiful could be anything but perfect.

But, if he believed the rumours, she was far from perfect. Not that he always bought into that gossip. There had been something about him going around that said he had gotten some girl pregnant and left her to deal with the child on its own, but most people didn't buy too much into it and it was forgotten pretty quickly.

The thing with Levana's rumours was they had some facts involved. Years ago, Levana's house had burned down. Still inside the house was Levana's sister Channery the then-head of Luna Corp, and her daughter Selene. The police had investigated, but couldn't pinpoint any sort of error that would have caused the tragic accident to take place.

There had been some discussion of a murder investigation, and Levana as the inheritor of the estate certainly had motive, but the case closed and called it an accident. Conspiracy theorists said Levana had bought everyone off to stop the investigation, and Kai couldn't say he completely disregarded it.

He pulled up into his driveway, shut off the engine, and then sat there for a moment. He took a deep breath to steady himself. He anticipated seeing the wires and tubes sticking from his previously vibrant father. He shut his eyes for a second and then walked inside the house.


	2. Kai

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed a small detail in the first chapter. Instead of meeting at Mr. Lou's classroom they are going to be meeting in the school's workshop.

Kai stood in the workshop, his back to the door. He stared down at the tools on the workbench. One thing looked like a hammer and a corkscrew gave birth and he couldn't see how it could possibly be used. He picked up a wrench, at least he knew what that one was, and tested the weight in his hand. He was still holding in when he heard the door open behind him.

He turned around to face his tutor and felt his own eyes widen. He had been expecting some senior girl to be helping him, but this girl… She had caramel brown hair pulled back in a messy ponytail and dark brown eyes that seemed a bit wide too. She was in a t-shirt and some jeans and there were dark grease stains everywhere. There was even a smudge on her forehead. But somehow, it didn't look sloppy or dirty, just real.

He realized they had both been standing in silence staring at each other for a bit longer than what was socially acceptable and he cursed himself. "Hello, you must be Mr. Lou's student I'm-"

"I know who you are." The girl spoke quickly, and then her eyebrows knit together as though she was realizing what she said.

"Sorry, I just- I mean- you're Huang Kaito, Mr. Popular and the heir to one of the largest companies in the world. Most people in the country know who you are, every girl in the country does anyway. Not that I-" she shook her head, "I know who you are. You really need my help, though?"

The smile that had been growing on Kai's face faded as he winced, again. "Well, Kai is fine, thanks." He scratched the back of his head, "and yeah, I'm pretty good at figuring out other stuff, but shop class is definitely not my thing. And I didn't get your name?"

"I'm Cinder." She held out her hand to shake his and he moved instinctively to take her hand and realized he was still holding the wrench. He waffled around for a second, but the girl, Cinder, smiled and took the wrench from him. She held in in her right hand and shook his hand with her left and Kai wanted to melt into the floor from being so stupid.

But, he felt less a little less like dying after he saw the smile on her face. "Clearly I don't know how to handle anything in this room," he said trying to make a joke out of it. The smile stayed and he felt better. Maybe learning shop wouldn't be so bad after all.

"This is a wrench, by the way." She shook the tool in her grasp with a wry smile.

He started to protest, ready to defend his grasp of basic knowledge, say that he knew what a wrench was, he wasn't that pathetic, but he realized she was teasing him and relaxed. "Thanks, I think I've got that one down. I know which one is a hammer too, before you teach me that one."

"Okay then, I guess we should get started." She pushed some flat thing on wheels towards the old car parked in the workshop, put a set of tools by the car, and then laid down on top of it. "Care to join me?"

Kai felt his eyebrows rise. Maybe he shouldn't have made the hammer comment. If she thought he was ready to fix a car, then she was definitely overestimating his abilities. "Well, I don't know if – I don't even know what any of those things are." He waved towards the tools she had just set down.

She sat up on the rolly-thingy and gave him a comforting smile. "Really, don't worry so much about that. Think of it as a card game. You can read the directions all you want, but you're not going to understand the game until you start playing it." She shrugged, "you'll learn what different tools are and how they're used by actually using them." And then she patted the space next to her and Kai gave in.

He laid down next to her and felt the side of her body pressed against his. Kai looked over at Cinder to gauge her reaction, and she looked completely composed as she pushed with her feet to roll them under the car. The only thing he could see, and it may have been his imagination in the dim lighting beneath the car, was a faint blush across the top of her cheekbones.

"Right now," she stopped to clear her throat for a moment, "today is going to be really simple. This car is old and rusty, so I'm mostly going to be cleaning out these pipes and making sure everything is in working order. I'll point out and name the different things that we work on as we work on them."

Kai realized two things at that moment. One was that she had finished what she was saying and was now looking at him for some sign of agreement. And second was that he had been staring at her the entire time.

"Kai?" she sounded slightly concerned.

He felt his ears burning again. "Sorry, it's just… you weren't what I was expecting."

"Oh, well, I'm sorry to disappoint."

"No!" the exclamation burst from him, "no, I'm surprised, but definitely  **not** disappointed."

She smiled again and Kai felt sure that he had been right before. This tutoring thing wouldn't be bad at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to go mainly with Kai's POV on this one. I'm going to compromise a bit though and also publish Cinder's POV of this meeting in the next chapter.
> 
> I would like to sincerely thank all of my wonderful reviewers. Honestly I didn't think anyone would read this, so hearing your kind responses meant a lot to me.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for fun, so I hope you enjoy the read. I also want to apologize about my lack of knowledge about different countries school systems, naming practices, or honorifics. If I do something stupid or disrespectful, I apologize and please send me a message about my mistake. I will do my best to correct it.
> 
> What'd you think? Constructive criticism is appreciated, but any sort of comment (even flames) is accepted. Seriously, if you want to tell me how bad I suck, I still wanna thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to say anything.


End file.
